BUSINESS ENGLISH AND FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS ...

taking into close consideration the possible reactions on the part of the speech addressee. According to
Michael McCaskey from Harvard School of Business, “as you examine misunderstandings between two
managers, you will often find that what fouls the channels of communication is their mutual assumption
that they are using the same words to mean the same things… What makes communication problematic
is that people fail to recognize the personally distinctive ways in which others use words” [4]. In this
respect a generalized judgment put forward by professor Olga Aleksandrova from Moscow State
University accounts for the significance of functional analysis, as “it is impossible to denote the meaning
of the communicative unit (a word, a word combination or a sentence) only with the help of a number of
elementary components. But, according to the psycholinguistic investigations, a word does not possess
any fixed meaning, there is always the multiform system of bonds” [5]. That is why we start teaching
Business English with convincing students that in order to be efficient they have to assess the functional
potential of the forms in which their thoughts and intentions are worded.
Besides understanding the partner’s incentives and some individual properties, indispensible for
successful communication is also the speaker’s competence in matters of intercultural interaction, as it is
common knowledge that being persuasive in your own culture does not guarantee being persuasive in
other cultures [6]. Therefore, the basics of functional linguistics make a good instrument that helps
disclose what lies behind this or that way of formulating people’s positions in certain circumstances and
within certain cultural contexts.
Functional linguistics started being elaborated at the beginning of the XXth century within linguistic
structuralism; but as by that time a vast amount of descriptive linguistic data had been accumulated, it
became evident that time had come to search for more profound explanations of language structures
activity. Thus, very soon the new tendency developed into a specific academic school focused mostly on
how (and later, why) the described units function.
It is assumed that the ground work for functionalism was done by Ferdinand de Saussure, Otto
Jespersen, Jan Baudouin de Courtenay and others who posed a definite question of the interconnection
between the semantic potential of language units within the language system and the actual meaning
they acquire in speech under the influence of linguistic and non-linguistic factors of communication.
Later such position grew into the ‘teleological’ principle substantiated by the Prague Linguistic Circle (the
Prague School), according to which language should be analised as a teleological – purposeful – system
of means of expression specially designed for communication. Among the founding members of the
Prague School were such personalities as Vilém Mathesius (President of PLC until his death in 1945),
Roman Jakobson, Nikolay Trubetzkoy, Sergei Karcevskiy, Jan Mukarovský, etc. The first results of the
members’ cooperative efforts were presented in joint theses prepared for the First International Congress
of Slavicists held in Prague in 1929. These were published in the first volume of the then started series
Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague. The Théses outlined the direction of the work of the Circle’s
members. Such important concepts as the approach to the study of language as a synchronic system
which is, however, dynamic, functionality of elements of language, and the importance of the social
function of language were explicitly laid down as the basis for further research [7].
Since then functional theories of language may be viewed as dominating in linguistic studies, as even
more recent pragmatic and cognitive directions have, in fact, been elaborating the functional principles of
language analysis and are closely related to them.
The functional approach in linguistics has been substantially developed by S. Dik, T. van Dijk, R.P.
Fawsett, M.A.K. Halliday, W.L. Chafe, G. Leech, J. Svartvik, O.V. Aleksandrova, G.A. Zolotova, V.A.
Zvegintsev, E.S. Kubryakova, N.A. Slyusareva and many others whose works reveal the multisided
functional interaction of various components of the multilayered, dynamic and flexible system of the
natural human language. Various language units functions have been regarded in terms of their role as
communication tools tailored for a twofold purpose: to perceive the world and to share the worldview with
other people.
In the wake of theoretical investigations, quite numerous applied functional concepts have appeared as
an attempt to find better ways of teaching and learning foreign languages, especially stimulated by the allembracing
globalization processes. The effectiveness of the functional approach to, for instance,
improving students’ literacy has been proved and admitted, as can be seen from [8], [9], [10], [11] and
other works.
No less useful is functionalism for enhancing eloquence, as it develops a more profound and delicate
linguistic feeling with students and helps them elaborate a more systemic and meaningful perception of
speech – both their own and the communicating partner’s. Introducing elements of functional analysis into
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